<p>“The vast majority of employers don’t care where you went to undergrad, let alone what your major is, or whether you were in business school or Arts and Sciences.”</p>
<p>AHAH, I dare you to get a job in a top high tech or semiconductor company with a liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>and that’s why I said “vast majority”. But if I’m correct, the jobs you’re referring to have more to do with engineering, and that’s an entirely different discipline in itself. Let’s keep it to Business here.</p>
<p>The percentage of business majors getting real jobs even in this down year will be MUCH higher than the % of liberal arts grads at most schools.</p>
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<p>So, now you’re impugning the entire financial services and consulting industries?</p>
<p>Actually business is the best thing to do in these economic times as most places require that degree now.</p>
<p>No important employer gives a rats behind that you took liberal arts because you like to “learn for the sake of learning” (that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!). Business will give you more practice and be more prepared for the MBA. With a biz major under your belt you can score a great job in biz while doing grad school. </p>
<p>People who call undergrad biz “uneducated” and “narrow minded” are just too scared or stupid to go into any specialized field. Biz majors already have their “ish” together, while LA majors who insult biz majors – not so much. They’re sheltered and need the LA major to understand the world before they can do it any good. Until they finish grad school, they are what we call “no-educated” and “no-minded”.</p>
<p>ring<em>of</em>fire: “It’s a fact that quantitative/Engineering majors do the best in Econ classes and b-school kids do the worst.”</p>
<p>Prove that.</p>
<p>There are plenty of kids who are smart enough for Econ/Math/Stats majors and wouldn’t get weeded out. But then again there are also some business students that wouldn’t do too well in those majors.</p>
<p>bdl108:</p>
<p>While I respect your opinion, I don’t think you can say CAS and Stern students are equally smart. There are some students in each that could/should go in the other school but the main bulk are bright but just a smidge lower than Stern students. I just thinks its kind of silly because using your logic since I can say UPenn CAS students are equal to UPenn Wharton students. While both groups are incredibly bright, the edge does go to the Wharton students.</p>
<p>I’m not nominating them for the Nobel Prize in Economics. I think most people in those industries work more for their own interest than the client. I think the ethos is to sell the suckers whatever dogfood you happen to have on hand. I have heard that from many X bankers, etc. Several books on the industry have essentially said the same thing.</p>
<p>Bocconi University tops most of those schools for Economics. Actually, all of them except Harvard.</p>
<p>[Success</a> stories - MBA SDA Bocconi](<a href=“http://mba.sdabocconi.it/home/main.php?id=260052008]Success”>http://mba.sdabocconi.it/home/main.php?id=260052008)</p>
<p>plasma99: I understand and agree with what you’re saying. However, what I’m getting at is that Stern kids are, without a doubt, much more quantitatively gifted than their CAS counterparts, but CAS students will have the intellectual edge in most other disciplines. There’s more than one definition of smart :P</p>
<p>And to those who think undergraduate business degrees are necessary for corporate success, look at the CEO profiles of firms like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorganChase, AllianceBernstein, and Fidelity Investments. No undergraduate business degrees. Just liberal arts or engineering and most have an MBA.</p>
<p>Undergrad schools of S&P 500 CEOs
Wisconsin and Harvard tied for #1. Engineering , econ, and business majors lead the way.</p>
<p><a href=“http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2008_RTTT_Final_summary.pdf[/url]”>http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2008_RTTT_Final_summary.pdf</a></p>
<p>Here’s a better way to look at it: how many of those who succeed in business have an undergrad business degree? If an undergrad business degree is not present in the resumes of a large percentage of top businessmen, then its use seems rather limited, no? </p>
<p>The real question is, if you’re a successful businessman with an undergrad biz degree, how much less successful would you be if you suddenly remove that degree? If not much less, then the degree is obviously useless.</p>
<p>I am a CPA – while it is possible to get one without an UG business, it would involve taking the same courses. When I went to school, in order to sit for NYS CPA exam, you needed 60 credits liberal arts, the rest in business, including accounting</p>
<p>Just as important, I enjoyed my UG classes – many people do. </p>
<p>Why would you say the UG degree would be worthless – why would it not at worst be worht the same as liberal arts? At a mimumum, it minimized early years of lower paying jobs.</p>
<p>How is it a waste of time? All the important employers I know don’t care about grad school as long as you get your BBA from atleast a fairly high ranked business program undergrad. It hardly sounds like a waste of time unless you go to a not-so-good biz undergrad…</p>
<p>But success in life isn’t about grad school unless you’re another hilarious “liberal arts major” defendant who bashes biz majors. Seems biz undergrads are always one step ahead of them. They have more experience, skills, and money long beforehand.</p>
<p>Looking at the schools the OP listed, I cannot help but think I’m posting in a ■■■■■ topic right now.</p>
<p>Barrons: The link you posted is wonderful.</p>
<p>According to the survey:</p>
<p>Liberal Arts, Engineering, and Economics (which is a Liberal Art), combined to account for about 44% of all F500 CEOs. Business Administration and Accounting? Combined, a mere 22%. When you take Engineering out of the picture, Liberal Arts and Economics combine to 22%, which is equal to BA and Accounting.</p>
<p>While you can’t dispute the survey results, I doubt that the F500 CEOs got to their position with just an undergraduate liberal arts degree. I am sure the bulk of them pursued MBAs later on.</p>
<p>Either way, I am not sure how some people can put a liberal arts degree on a pedestal above business degrees. While a business student is probably slightly less holistic, I believe it is not so bad that their undergraduate experience can be deemed futile and a waste of time.</p>
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<p>I don’t think your reasoning is correct. Are you assuming the schools are turning out as many business grads as they are liberal art grads? Without even looking at data, that can not be right.</p>
<p>I’d say economics is the degree pursued by business oriented people going to schools without business programs or who just did not want to do a business undergrad.</p>
<p>Liberal arts degrees are good preparation for grad school, since, as one of the articles states, they teach you how to learn. Unfortunately, they don’t train you for a job.</p>
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<p>If biz majors have about the same success rate as liberal arts majors, who did not study business, then of course it’s useless, because it means that you can major in any other random major and be equally successful, which means an undergrad degree doesn’t actually teach you anything. Now, if stats say that non-LA people can become successful in LA in the same rate, you can easily say LA is useless a well.</p>
<p>plasma99: “Either way, I am not sure how some people can put a liberal arts degree on a pedestal above business degrees. While a business student is probably slightly less holistic, I believe it is not so bad that their undergraduate experience can be deemed futile and a waste of time.”</p>
<p>UG Business degrees are a contrivance of recent times. Maybe in the years to come, they will be more prominent, but in terms of today’s CEOs, they obviously have no superiority to LA degrees.</p>
<p>Canuckguy: “I don’t think your reasoning is correct. Are you assuming the schools are turning out as many business grads as they are liberal art grads? Without even looking at data, that can not be right.”</p>
<p>I calculated the results myself, and the numbers don’t lie. Sorry if it doesn’t exactly match up with your preconceived notions. If you want to look at the data yourself, check out Barrons’ link a page or two back.</p>
<p>“Liberal arts degrees are good preparation for grad school, since, as one of the articles states, they teach you how to learn. Unfortunately, they don’t train you for a job.”</p>
<p>This is the point exactly. I think the problem here is that everyone assumes you have to pursue a career based on what you major in. Sure pre-professional programs like business give you a boost, but in reality, employers really do not care what you majored in at the undergraduate level as long as you perform well. If anything, going to a more prestigious graduate program is where it really counts.</p>